Catheter-associated Urinary Tract Infections (CAUTI): From the Editor

Catheter-associated urinary tract infections continue to be an issue for clinicians and institutions, particularly hospitals.  The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) released many documents that clinicians and infectious disease experts will find useful in fighting this problem.  One is a Toolkit for Preventing CLABSI and CAUTI in ICUs that offers customizable tools and training resources to prevent central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) and catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) in intensive care units (ICUs).

According to the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), a catheter-associated UTI (CAUTI) is the most common type of healthcare-associated infection (HAI) in the US, accounting for:

• > 30% of acute care hospital infections:
• 13,000 deaths associated with UTIs each year
• Estimated 449,334 CAUTI events per year
• Each episode associated with the medical cost of $758